Forward Deployed Engineer

David AI is the first audio data research company. We bring an R&D approach to data–developing datasets with the same rigor AI labs bring to models. Our mission is to bring AI into the real world, and we believe audio is the gateway. Speech is versatile, accessible, and human—it fits naturally into everyday life. As audio AI advances and new use cases emerge, high-quality training data is the bottleneck. This is where David AI comes in.

David AI was founded in 2024 by a team of former Scale AI engineers and operators. In less than a year, we’ve brought on most FAANG companies and AI labs as customers. We recently raised a $50M Series B from Meritech, NVIDIA, Jack Altman (Alt Capital), Amplify Partners, First Round Capital and other Tier 1 investors.

Our team is sharp, humble, ambitious, and tight-knit. We’re looking for the best research, engineering, product, and operations minds to join us on our mission to push the frontier of audio AI.

When we need to scale a new capability 0→1, our Forward Deployed Engineers work with our operations team and leading AI labs to identify problems and build solutions.

Day-to-day, you focus on the highest-impact work. One week you might build an app to capture a new class of speech data; the next, prompt-engineer a new evaluator; and another, embed with a customer’s engineering team to maximize the value of our datasets.

• Design and ship custom 0→1 products for both our operations teams and customers.

• Navigate rapid context switches between technical deep-dives, customer-facing conversations, and data ops.

• A scrappy builder who can take an idea from 0→1 faster than most could write a PRD.

• An excellent communicator who can bridge technical and business contexts.

• Comfortable across the stack — backend, frontend, data, and cloud.

• Proven track record shipping fast-paced features with customer impact.

• Prior experience as a Forward Deployed Engineer at a high-growth company, with software engineering and product management as part of your role.

• Background as a former founder who has shipped and scaled products.

• Experience owning enterprise customer relationships.

• Familiarity with human data, audio, or machine learning.

• Top-tier consulting experience.

• Unlimited PTO.

• Top-notch health, dental, and vision coverage with 100% coverage for most plans.

• FSA & HSA access.

• 401k access.

• Meals 2x daily through DoorDash + snacks and beverages available at the office.

• Unlimited company-sponsored Barry’s classes.